Update: NYU Langone Among Many Hospitals to End Gender-Affirming Hormone Treatment for New and Existing Patients Under 18
With the future of care up in the air, parents prepare to uproot, and recusant activists prepare to push back, sources tell Assigned Media.
Hundreds protest at Union Square subway station to demand NYU Langone (among other culpable hospitals) resume health care for transgender youth. February 2025. Photo by Lana Leonard.
by Lana Leonard
NYU Langone is among nearly 40 hospitals to capitulate to the Trump administration’s anti-transgender agenda by ending gender-affirming hormone treatment to new and existing transgender patients under 18. The move amid intense political pressure including threats of withheld federal funding for hospitals who provide necessary care to trans youth.
An NYU Langone Health spokesperson cited the “current regulatory environment” as reason for the end to care, according to the New York Times.
Interviews with parents and activists by Assigned Media confirms that NYU Langone doctors are “allowed to see new patients but not give any prescriptions out” such as puberty blockers for the onset of puberty, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for specifically trans youth.
"We can’t leave trans youth and their affirming families on their own. If we don’t speak up now, it’s only going to be harder, in the near future, when this administration comes after care for trans adults and anyone who may need insulin or psychiatric medications. It’s coming for all of us,” Raquel Willis, co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement, said in an exclusive statement to Assigned Media.
Two parents of trans youth who spoke with Assigned Media, on condition of anonymity, said they received phone calls from NYU Langone nurses on February 17, explaining that certain gender-related care for their children will cease completely.
One parent said she has an appointment with her son later this week. However, she added “obviously there's no point in going back there, because [our doctor] can no longer actually provide health care other than just consultation.”
She said her son (who consented to sharing this information with Assigned Media) is “emotionally devastated,” and that he feels unsafe as a result of these decisions made by NYU Langone. “My child spent yesterday afternoon and evening ‘dissociating’ (his word) in order to deal with the news from NYU.”
This parent said she, her son, and the rest of her family are afraid.
They’ve since made contingency plans to get health care outside of the country. In another scenario, the family is thinking of uprooting and leaving the U.S. all together so that her child is safe, and free to live his life with dignity and autonomy. Another factor in their thinking is the administration’s threat to strip custody of parents for consenting to gender-affirming care for their trans children, the parent said.
“‘It's not NYU,’” the same parent said, quoting the nurse that called after expressing her grievances with NYU Langone. “‘The Trump administration has forced them to do this,’ and I said I'm going to cut you off right now. That line isn't going to stand because NYU has not fought. Other hospitals we know have fought and continue to fight, and NYU has just capitulated,” the parent continued.
Assigned Media originally reported on NYU Langone’s disruption to trans healthcare for minors and young adults in May of 2025.
At the time, NYU Langone denied care to new patients under 19, while continuing to write prescriptions for current trans youth experiencing gender dysphoria. In this recent escalation all patients under 18 (new and current) will be denied care.
Since January 28 of 2025, several hospitals and clinics have assented to President Trump’s discriminatory executive order by pausing or canceling care for new trans youth patients, despite legal challenges in the courts. Additionally, NYU Langone is ending care despite repeated guidance from New York Attorney General Letitia James to continue care for trans youth in accordance with state laws.
Health and Human Services (HHS) on December 18, 2025 issued a series of proposed regulatory actions to “carry out” the January of 2025 executive order. These actions included a notice from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which proposed a rule to barring hospitals from performing necessary medical care for trans youth under 18 as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
According to the HHS, the FDA worked in tandem to issue warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers for marketing breast binders to youth who wish to flatten the appearance of their breast as a result of gender dysphoria or otherwise.
In response, parents of trans youth and activists blockaded the entrance of HHS on February 17. Of those activists, 25 were arrested by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) before being handed off to the Metropolitan Police Department, according to an email from GLM Co-Founder Eliel Cruz to Assigned Media. Cruz added that “most were denied the chance to make phone calls to contact friends, family, or legal support.”
“NYU, preemptively, following suit is going to send a signal to a lot of other hospitals to comply before anything even takes place because it's NYU. We have continuously called upon healthcare providers to move in radical defiance of the erasure of care for trans people, and we are not going to stop taking action just because of what HHS and this administration is doing,” said ACT UP NY trans working group members who participated in the action outside of HHS in a statement to Assigned Media.
NYU Langone did not immediately respond to Assigned Media’s request for clarification or comment.
For the last two years, Lana Leonard has reported on New Jersey school board politics and the implications for Policy 5756 for Out in Jersey Magazine. Leonard is also the associate of education & advocacy at the GLAAD Media Institute, the organization’s training, research and consulting division. Read more about their work here.